Nearly 30 years have passed since the Peacock inquiry into the funding of the BBC concluded that the licence fee should continue as “the least worst option” for delivering public service broadcasting. To say that the media world has changed in the meantime would be an understatement. In 1986, Channel 4 had only been on air for a few years and apart from the BBC and ITV there were no other television stations. Today there are dozens. Yet if you want to watch TV, then you have to pay the BBC £145.50 a year whether you like it or not.

A review of this arrangement is long overdue, and with the current charter running out at the end of 2016 now is the time to start one. Rightly, this is a task that has been taken on by Parliament in the shape of the Commons culture select committee, which yesterday took evidence from an array of past BBC chiefs.

It was noteworthy that while they all continued to champion the ethos of a universal public broadcasting service, the question of how to fund it is no longer as straightforward as it seemed in 1986. Is the licence fee still the least worst option? Gavyn Davies, the former chairman of the BBC board of governors, thought it would become unsustainable within a decade, as more people watch programmes for free on iPlayer. He suggested that this might need to become a subscription service – in which case, why not extend that model to the whole of the BBC?

Indeed, in its evidence to the Peacock committee, the BBC said it was interested in looking at subscription, though the technology was too rudimentary at the time to allow such an innovation. It isn’t now, so this is an idea that needs to be considered seriously as part of the charter negotiations over the next three years.